Using the Drinking Expectancy Questionnaire (revised scoring method) in clinical practice

Abstract

The Drinking Expectancy Questionnaire (Young & Knight, 1989;Young & Oei, 1996) has been widely used in clinical and research settings over the past 20 years. A revised scoring method with a five-factor structure has been proposed but no normative data for this method is available (Lee, Oei, Greeley, & Baglioni, 2003). The aim of this study is to establish norms for the five expectancy subscales (Social Confidence; Sexual Interest; Cognitive Enhancement; Tension Reduction; and Negative Consequences) in a sample of adults entering hospital treatment for alcohol dependence (N=163) and a sample of university undergraduate students (N= 110). Clinical sample means on the expectancy subscales tended to be substantially higher than the means for the student sample, with the exception of Sexual Interest (which was higher in the students). Interestingly, the Negative Consequences subscale mean was more than two standard deviations higher in the clinical sample, and was strongly correlated with measures of depression, anxiety and stress. The Negative Consequences scores were strongly associated with drinking risk in the student sample but were not related to drinking measures in the clinical sample. A ROC analysis established a cut-off on the DEQ total of 107 that distinguished dependent drinkers from student drinkers with high sensitivity and specificity. The clinical utility of the DEQ in general will be discussed.

Alcohol dependent patients have weak negative rather than strong positive implicit alcohol associations

“…Consistent with recent findings, (Li and Dingle 2012) alcohol dependent participants were characterised by stronger positive and negative AOEs than the control group. Self-reported positive and negative AOEs and automatic negative alcohol associations each significantly predicted group membership, but automatic positive alcohol associations did not.…”

“…The relationship between AOEs and alcohol consumption appears fairly complex: positive AOEs are implicated in the initiation and establishment of alcohol involvement during adolescence, whereas negative AOEs develop after experience of the negative consequences of alcohol consumption, and then lead to reductions in alcohol consumption, in older adults (Jones and McMahon 1996; Lee et al 1999). Individuals with alcohol dependence hold stronger positive (Brown et al 1985; Connors et al 1986) and negative AOEs (Li and Dingle 2012) compared to non-dependent controls, which is indicative of ambivalence in alcohol dependent patients. Moreover, both positive and negative AOEs decrease after inpatient detoxification (Spada and Wells 2008) or cognitive behaviour therapy (Young et al 2011), and prospective studies indicate that both positive (Young et al 2011) and negative (Jones and McMahon 1996) AOEs assessed in the clinic predict future treatment outcome.…”

The Role of Social, Familial, and Individual-Level Factors on Multiple Alcohol Use Outcomes During the First Year of University

“…Alcohol expectations of sociability and sexuality are significantly associated with alcohol initiation and consumption but not with problematic drinking or addiction resistance. Previous studies have demonstrated that positive expectancies and motives regarding alcohol lead individuals to drink and to consume more (Li and Dingle, 2012, Ham et al, 2005). This fits with Expectancy Theory, which proposes that expectancies about the outcomes of a behavior affect the likelihood of engaging in that behavior (Goldman et al, 1999).…”

Alcohol misuse in emerging adulthood: Association of dopamine and serotonin receptor genes with impulsivity-related cognition

“…0.83 to 0.96) and test-retest reliability (r = 0.84 to 0.93; Oei et al, 2005;Young, Hasking, Oei, & Loveday, 2007;Young et al, 1991 Disagree to 5 = Strongly Agree). The DEQ-R has been psychometrically validated and normed on Australian community, student, and alcohol-dependent samples (Lee et al, 2003;Li & Dingle, 2012;Young & Knight, 1989).The positive expectancy scales were summed to index of total positive alcohol expectancy (Young, Connor, Ricciardelli, & Saunders, 2006 (Ott, 1988). All SNPs were found to be in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (p > 0.05).…”